January is an awful month.
It’s miserably cold everyday, and attempting to navigate on snowy and icy roads is comparable to driving on an air hockey table.
All of those reasons aside, January truly earns my eternal hatred because the movies released are generally awful. Most movie studios get their good stuff out during December to snag some Oscar nominations or capitalize on huge Christmas box office profits. Then January hits, and avid filmgoers are stuck with Hollywood’s table scraps.
Perhaps there is no better example of these early year miseries than “Season of the Witch.” The horror/thriller based on the Crusades was originally set for release on March 13 … last year. After almost a year of delays and plummeting expectations, it was finally released Jan. 7 to middling box office totals and even worse critical response.
I’ll save you the two hours and $9.50 and tell you that it’s unfathomably boring. When a movie’s best attribute is the end credits, something has gone horribly wrong.
The most disappointing aspect of “Season of the Witch” is Oscar winner Nicolas Cage himself. Cage’s IMDb filmography is slowly yet surely becoming a list of hilariously tragic mistakes, and his current money woes probably aren’t helping matters.
But even in recent years, Cage’s critical failures were guaranteed entertainment. Case in point: “The Wicker Man.”
The 2006 film, based on a 1973 British cult hit, is your basic Agatha Christie-like mystery. Cage is a detective who heads to a mysterious island in order to find a missing girl. One would expect that, as the film wears on, events get more and more intense and suspenseful, but instead the events get more ridiculous and, eventually, absolutely hilarious.
For example, most thrillers feature an intense climactic action scene. “The Wicker Man’s” climax features Cage running through a forest wearing a bear suit, punching insanely murderous cult women in the face. I’m going to give you a quick minute to put this movie in your Netflix queue now.
Anyway, the crucial ingredient of “The Wicker Man’s” hilarity is the presence of Cage. He is easily the best comedic actor working right now — despite the fact that he doesn’t star in comedies, or at least intentionally funny ones.
Most actors, when directed to karate kick an Amish-looking cult leader in the face, would perhaps ask for a rewrite or, heck, turn down the role completely. Cage, on the other hand, commits to the scene with dramatic intensity not even seen in the most epic of Greek tragedies. And just wait until he is forced to share a helmet with hundreds of bees. Take that, Sean Penn.
It’s that commitment to absolute trash that makes “The Wicker Man” must see entertainment. It fails on almost every level, but by doing so, succeeds. So, if you feel tempted to waste money in theaters this month, keep some of that money in your pocket and rent this brilliant mistake.
You’ll love it for all of the wrong reasons.
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